Approach

The £842m, Queen Elizabeth University Hospital Glasgow is one of the largest acute hospitals in the UK and home to major specialist services provisions for the whole of Scotland. The building accommodates more than a thousand beds, over 14 floors, where the clinical staff require administrative and support facilities. It was essential that these resources were located on a neighbouring site allowing for fast and efficient access 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

BMJ Architects, successfully collaborated with Greater Glasgow & Clyde NHS Trust to help them achieve their aspiration, by designing a new purpose built facility to provide a 21st century office environment for clinical and administration staff with 1,200 desks and 110 touchdown areas, over 3 floors. The new building serves as a high quality, modern, working environment designed to strengthen working patterns and encourage more collaborative, integrated and cross-functional activity amongst teams. Forward thinking space planning allows the flexible accommodation for changing group and team sizes.

The design brief centered around staff wellbeing whilst delivering NHS core ethos and values through their workplace models. Two toplit atriums allow natural light to reach the deepest part of each floor plate through ribbon windows and to flood into the open plan breakout and meeting areas, created within these centralised zone. These spaces project a caring and reassuring atmosphere and enhance the working environment by creating a sense of community by encouraging conversation and collaboration.

The rationalisation and consolidation of the existing estate has provided greater efficiencies and effectiveness and reduced capital and management costs through more space-efficient work places. As with all developments on the hospital site, a considered holistic design approach was used to integrate high efficiency, low energy mechanical and electrical building services within a high performance building envelope. Low carbon and renewable energy technologies have also been employed with PV (solar) panels on the roof.